Biotech: Can Microscopic Sentries Protect US Troops?
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From repelling bugs to protecting divers in dangerous waters, scientists are pushing the boundaries of biotech.
Say It With Space Lasers: Optical Comsats For Major War
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Nine years after the Pentagon tried and failed to build laser communications satellites, can the private sector get it done?
Say It With Lasers: $45M DoD Prize For Optical Coms
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PENTAGON: Live by the radio, die by the radio — unless, maybe, you switch to lasers, which are much harder to detect and interfere with. That’s why the Defense Department recently awarded a three-year, $45 million grant to a tri-service project for a laser communications system. “This is basically fiber optic communications without the fiber,”… Keep reading →
PACOM Presses To Film China’s Reckless Pilots From P-3s, P-8s
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Concerned over increasingly reckless Chinese and Russian intercepts of US aircraft, Pacific Command says it urgently needs cameras on its planes to provide irrefutable proof of their misbehavior. The problem: reconnaissance planes like the propeller-driven P-3 Orion and the new jet-powered P-8 Poseidon are designed to take photos of the land and sea far below, not of… Keep reading →
Navy Forges New EW Strategy: Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare
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WASHINGTON: The Navy is crafting a battle plan to retake control of the electromagnetic spectrum, which the Pentagon’s chief of research says we’ve lost. First of all, if adversaries can exploit rapid advances in commercial electronics to run circles around America’s multi-billion dollar arsenal, our slow-moving procurement process needs to be more open to civilian innovation.… Keep reading →
Nano Breakthrough For Navy Lab; Tiny Sensors To Detect Explosives, Bio Weapons, Rotten Food
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WASHINGTON: Imagine: tiny sensors built into military combat gear to detect chemical or biological weapons; unseen sensors peppered throughout a submarine to detect radiation leaks or chemical contamination of the crew’s precious air; a cellphone — think Star Trek tricorder, flip it open, open the app and bingo! — able to detect the gas of… Keep reading →
Navy Lab Tests Firefighting Robots, Tiny UAVs At Sea And In Desert In DC
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WASHINGTON: I walked past a sandy desert, a littoral waterway and a steamy jungle and watched a human-like robot extinguish a shipboard fire, all in about an hour and without leaving town. It was possible because the Navy has opened a new Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR) on the grounds of the Naval Research… Keep reading →